Chris Abel

"I have always enjoyed the writings of Chris Abel. They are full of surprising insights and provocative connections between such diverse issues as history, technology and ecology"

Norman Foster, Founder, Foster + Partners

"Chris Abel is a nomad in the intellectual as well as the geographical sense. The result is always unconventional and challenging, and sometimes impressively prescient"

Colin Davies, The Architectural Review

"Abel does the work of a horde of architectural critics writing all at the same time from all over the globe’

Ken Yeang, Hamzah & Yeang

"For anyone interested in actually understanding the radical responses of architecture to the changing times, Abel offers a powerful perspective built over many years of reflection that is more relevant than ever"

Anthony Burke, University of Technology Sydney

"‘Having been taught by Chris I can testify to his passion and knowledge. VAST is amongst the very best in advanced tall building studios internationally"

Antony Wood, Executive Director, CTBUH

"This exhibition and book come at a crucial moment in the development of our cities…not because such approaches are the ultimate expression of the Modernist project or of a particular aesthetic, but because they can help to solve the problem of the growth of our cities"

Norman Foster, Founder, Foster + Partners

"It really makes me look at nearly everything I do with a critical eye; everything from the products I consume, to my design choices. It has added an entirely new dimension to the way I analyse architecture and lifestyles"

Student Andrews, on a climate change seminar, UNL

Biotech Architecture

What is Biotech architecture?

Biotech architecture is not a style. It is a computer-centred process of architectural design, production and use.
Biotech architecture combines global technologies with local responses to site and social conditions.
Biotech architecture is information-based, not form-based. It does not prescribe what a building should look like, but how it should behave. Bio-tech architecture uses smart technologies to achieve a dynamic, interactive relationship between a building, its users and the environment. In the near future, smart materials will be used to help achieve the same result.
Biotech architecture aims for customized design from the molecular level to the rooftop!
Biotech architecture is self-organizing. It is not a fixed or final product, but is more like a biological organism which continuously learns about itself and its surroundings, adapting to changing conditions and improving its own performance.
Diversity is as important to Bio-Tech architecture as bio-diversity is to nature.
Biotech architectural design is a total design approach with continuous feedback from the production process to the design process and vice versa.
Biotech architectural design is multi-disciplinary and network-based. It involves co-ordinating a number of simultaneous dialogues with different people in different locations using complementary skills, covering all aspects of design, production and use, including clients and future users wherever possible.
The heart of the Bio-Tech design process is the virtual prototype, which is both a design and communications medium. Used together with rapid prototyping and associated virtual reality technologies, Bio-Tech architecture actively encourages full and open participation in design.
Biotech architecture demands radical changes in education and practice!

From: 'Networking the studio: architectural education and the virtual practice'. Environments by Design, Winter 1997/98, pp. 81-82.